October 19, 2023 — The following was released by Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission:
Yesterday, member states of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (Commission) thanked Spud Woodward of Georgia for an effective two-year term as Chair and elected Joseph Cimino of New Jersey to succeed him.
“I’m honored to be chosen by my fellow Commissioners to lead our efforts for the next two years. One of my priorities will be to work with my colleagues in the states and federal agencies to seek resources to fund fundamental fisheries data collection and science activities to support our management programs. Other topics that will be the focus over the next two years will be our ability to adapt to climate-induced changes in fisheries and how best to respond to the possible recalibration of recreational fishing effort and harvest data from the Marine Recreational Information Program Fishing Effort Survey,” said Mr. Cimino.
Mr. Cimino continued, “I want to thank outgoing Chair, Spud Woodward for his commitment to updating our foundational guidance documents on our Appeals Process, De Minimis Policy, and Conservation Equivalency Guidelines. These clearly articulated guidelines and processes are fundamentally important to ensuring that we treat each other fairly and without undue burden in the management process. Newly elected Vice-chair Dan McKiernan and I will strive to emulate his success by working with our stakeholders, state, federal, and academic partners, Congress, and especially Bob Beal and the outstanding staff to ensure Cooperative and Sustainable Management of Atlantic Coastal Fisheries is not just a vision statement but a reality.”
Under Mr. Woodward’s leadership, the Commission made important strides in furthering its strategic goals. Management accomplishments over the past two years include decisive action to initiate rebuilding of Atlantic striped bass; the adoption of a new amendment for summer flounder, scup and black sea bass to address the reallocation of the resource between commercial and recreational sectors; approved changes to the management of recreational fisheries for bluefish, summer flounder, scup and black sea bass through adoption of recreational measures setting process; and the approval of new addenda for American lobster, Atlantic menhaden, and horseshoe crab – all with the shared goal of providing the states and their stakeholders fair access to these resources while ensuring the species’ health and long-term sustainability. An outstanding number of benchmark stock assessments and assessment updates were completed, including American eel, Atlantic menhaden, Atlantic striped bass, black drum, bluefish, Jonah crab, winter flounder, and revision to the Adaptive Resource Management Framework.
Working with the three East Coast Regional Fishery Management Councils and NOAA Fisheries, significant progress was also made on how fisheries managers can best address changing fish stock availability or distribution caused by climate change with the development of potential governance and management actions that could help prepare fishery management organizations for future challenges related to climate change.
Further, advances in habitat conservation were made by the Atlantic Coastal Fish Habitat Partnership (ACFHP) through its funding of seven on-the-ground projects, which will open over 40 river miles and conserve over 300 acres of fish habitat. These include dam removal and fishway projects in New Jersey and Massachusetts, as well as saltmarsh and seagrass restoration projects in North Carolina and Florida. ACFHP also partnered with the Southeast Aquatic Resources Partnership and The Nature Conservancy to spatially prioritize fish habitat conservation sites through GIS mapping and analyses for the Atlantic region of the U.S. from Maine to Florida.
From a data collection and management perspective, the Atlantic Coastal Cooperative Statistics Program (ACCSP) also made progress under Mr. Woodward’s leadership. ACCSP supported 27 partner agency data collection projects, and expanded the scope and security of the ACCSP Data Warehouse. ACCSP established citizen science policies and data collection systems including SciFish; supported implementation of the SouthEast For-Hire Integrated Electronic Reporting system; completed the Atlantic Regional Recreational Data Needs Implementation plan; and made progress on a methodology to more fully use for-hire logbooks in Marine Recreational Information Program’s catch statistics.
Mr. Cimino directs the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection’s (NJDEP) Marine Resources Administration, which includes the bureaus of marine fisheries and marine habitat and shellfisheries. He represents the NJDEP at various inter- and intra-state meetings, including the New Jersey Marine Fisheries Council and the Delaware Bay and Atlantic Shellfisheries Councils, the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council, and the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, where he has represented the State of New Jersey since 2019 and prior to that the Commonwealth of Virginia from 2015-2018. Mr. Cimino directs the research and monitoring programs of the Administration to ensure they provide the information necessary for sound management of marine and shellfish resources. He started his marine fisheries career as a seasonal technician for New York State Department of Environmental Conservation’s Hudson River Fisheries Unit, he then spent two years with North Carolina’s Division of Marine Fisheries. During his 14 years with the Virginia Marine Resources Commission, he held various roles, ultimately finishing his time there as the Deputy Chief of Fisheries. Mr. Cimino has degrees from SUNY Cobleskill and Plattsburgh in Fisheries and Wildlife Technology and Environmental Science, respectively.
The Commission also elected Dan McKiernan, Director of Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, as its Vice-Chair.